Words
by coltsfoot
Summary: In their Senior year at DWMA, Maka and Soul become Teaching Assistants for Stein's "Fundamentals of Weapon-Meister Dynamics" Class. Maka assures Soul that it will be a breeze. Soul isn't so sure. And Stein can't resist a good experiment...
1. Chapter 1

**Words, Chapter 1**

The pen twirled through the fingers of Soul's right hand effortlessly. Each cycle produced a faint staccato of plastic clicks as the ink cartridge bounced against the outer tube. His left hand served to prop up his head as he sat slouched in the upper reaches of the auditorium.

Below, professor Stein traversed the classroom floor, demonstrating something or other about resonance over distance with two jittery first-years.

Soul yawned, eyelids drifting closed.

_Why had he agreed to do this stupid TA thing again? Sitting through "Fundamentals of Weapon-Meister Dynamics" had been painful enough the first time...all of the other Seniors were definitely using their free time in much cooler ways..._

His carefully executed equilibrium of slackerhood fell to pieces as a heavy object collided with the back of his skull.

The pen skittered across the floor and down several rows, and Soul's chin collided with the desk. He howled in pain and sat up straight, growling at the girl sitting in the seat next to him. She ignored his glare, apparently enraptured by the contents of a large, fat textbook open before her.

"JEEZ MAKAAAA!" He fumed through clenched teeth. "You're so FREAKING IMMATURE!"

"Are you volunteering, Soul?" Professor Stein asked

Soul tore his venomous glare away from his parter. The entire classroom was now focused on him.

"Such a good idea!" Stein grinned. "You'll be perfect for the next demonstration."

Even from the far reaches of the classroom, Soul could see the faint twitching at the corner of Stein's mouth. The man always seemed to be at the brink of insanity. It made his skin crawl.

"You too, Maka." Stein added. "We'll need both Weapon and Meister."

Soul sighed, extracting himself from his chair. He slunk toward the front of the room, Maka following behind him.

"Soul, you IDIOT!" Maka seethed under her breath. "We're supposed to be setting an EXAMPLE!"

"It's YOUR fault, NUMBNUTS!" He hissed back.

"I don't HAVE any N-"

"Here we are!" Stein greeted the pair, placing his arms on their shoulders and turning them to face the class.

"Students, I give you Shibusen's finest."

Soul tasted a wry sarcasm in the Meister's words, but Maka seemed oblivious, brightening.

"_Idiot..." _Soul thought. Her innocence was maddening sometimes

Maka scanned the room, her heart swelling despite her anger at her partner. Twenty or so bright-eyed faces looked back - _Like vessels, waiting to be filled with knowledge... _she thought, nostalgically. A couple of the girls might have been staring a bit too lovingly at Soul, but, she thought, that was nothing new. She rolled her internal eyes...If they only knew...

Soul tried not to meet any of the first-year's eyes directly. He wasn't huge on people he didn't know, and these kids were awkward, gawky... fresh from the fetid, hormone-laden hell of middleschool... He felt a bit sorry for them, but that didn't mean he wanted to interact with them in any sort of significant way. It was Maka who had some sentimental idea that it was their duty to shepherd the clueless puppies... _Crap_. He'd only agreed to this because she said all they'd need to do was sit in the back and help grade papers once in a while...

"Soul. I am going to give you a piece of paper." Stein began, scribbling on a notepad as he spoke.

"You'll find some instructions written there - a physical location, and a word. After I hand you the paper, I want you to go straight to the location, sit there, and think about the word. While you're there, Maka will initiate Soul Resonance with you. She'll narrate the process to the class as it goes along." He turned to the class.

"After they've resonated, Maka should be able to determine Soul's location, as well as his focused thoughts - i.e., the word he'll be meditating on. This will be a demonstration of advanced resonance over distance. It requires a deeper wavelength connection, which is usually only reached after significant time working together as Meister and Weapon. These two started out just like you. I want you to see and understand what you're capable of."

"Maka, take a seat." Stein said, dragging his signature rolling office chair to the center of the classroom. As she sat, Stein said in a low voice

"Try not to employ too much of your Soul Perception, Maka. None of these kids are on the EAT track. I don't want to give them false expectations..."

He stood up, turning to Soul.

"Soul. Go here." Stein handed him the paper. Soul started to move toward the exit.

"Wait. Here's the word." Stein ripped another piece from his notepad, folded it in half, then in half again and stuck it in the front pocket of Soul's Spartoi jacket.

"Don't look at it until you get to the spot."

Soul wasn't sure, but he thought he detected a sadistic flicker in the corner of Stein's eye. He decided not to dwell on it.

"Fine." Soul said.

In a moment he was out the door.

Soul unfolded the first paper. In strange printing that looked like a centipede on acid had tripped through a puddle of ink, it said "4th left hand turret, balcony".

_Great. _Soul thought, groaning. Probably the farthest possible place away from the classroom. And it was going to require a lot of stair-climbing.

On his way to the turret staircase, soul passed the Senior lounge. BlackStar and Tsubaki were there, along with other upperclassmen. Tsubaki was perched delicately in a soft armchair, reading a book. Blackstar reclined on a couch, playing some sort of shooting game on his phone.

"Hi Soul!" Tsubaki chirped, smiling graciously.

"Hey". Soul replied, pausing for a moment.

"How's Kindergarten going, buddy?" BlackStar asked, stretching and yawning luxuriously.

Soul turned and kept walking, flipping the ninja off behind his back, deftly hiding the gesture from Tsubaki.

_I'm going to kill Maka..._

Soul clutched at the cramp in his side as he ascended the last 10 steps of the 60 flights of stairs leading to the turret balcony. It definitely didn't look _that_ tall from the outside... _freaking Shinigami voodoo... _Soul growled

On the balcony, Soul collapsed against the outer wall of the turret, tearing off his jacket and loosening his tie. A steady current of warm wind flowed around him as the heat of the desert sun forced air thermals to rise upward from the ground. He squinted toward the sky, trying to calm his breathing. Several vultures wheeled in slow circles above Shibusen.

As his pulse slowed, Soul continued to watch the sky. The movement of the birds was rhythmic, dance-like. Something like a song, a waltz, began to materialize in his mind, keeping tempo with the slow turning of the big dark birds.

"Tell us what's happening now, Maka." Professor Stein probed.

"It's like... well... kind of like a hum... a buzz... that's what I feel like when I first reach out to resonate. It's different when Soul is next to me. It's easier...more instant if you decide to do it together, and you can see each other. It's less complicated when the purpose is for him to transform into a Scythe. Actually, there have only been a few times when we've had to resonate like this. For communication."

"Are you picking up anything yet?"

"Well... after all these years, Soul and I always have some small part that is constantly in resonance, whether we're paying attention to it or not. What I'm doing is trying to focus on that part, and bring it to the surface of my mind."

Maka closed her eyes and felt for the small cord that stretched between her and her Weapon. It was a fully different sense she was using - not seeing, not hearing, not feeling - but like all of them together and none of them at all. She was honing in, pinpointing the wavelength. As she drew it closer, its presence quickly built, becoming almost too much.

"You have to learn how to control it." Maka said, eyes shut, straining to focus.

"You're dealing with another person's _being _really, and you can't forget to maintain _your_ being, your boundaries."

She pushed it back - holding it separate from herself, then began to follow it at a measured pace.

She didn't know the specifics of how other Meisters and Weapons experienced resonance_ - it would have been great if she'd had the opportunity to hear two Seniors describe the process in real-time when she was a first year - _but with Soul's soul, at the beginning of resonance it was like following a rope along, hand over hand, the person on the other end sometimes pulling really hard, sometimes letting it go slack. Until she and Soul got the balance right, sometimes she'd be digging her heels in, sometimes racing forward to pick up the slack.

But once they found their groove, the were good. _Scary good._ Everyone said so.

As she followed the resonance cord, what Maka could only describe as a sound... a "note", to the first years, began to grow. The further she followed, the more defined it became. It started to pulse, developing a definite rhythm. The sound spread into chords. She felt like she was dancing, twirling.

"I see sky and... Soul, from above, he's on the balcony, and..."

Soul shook his head. Crazy. What was it about those birds... He'd been so entranced by the vultures that he'd almost forgotten about the word. He could feel Maka's wavelength now, linked to him in the unmistakable feeling of resonance. Her melody echoed off the walls of his mind. He could tell she was happy - enjoying the process of educating. She'd be a great teacher someday, he thought... a hard-ass, though. He sure as hell wouldn't want to take a class from her. Waaay too much reading required...

He pulled his coat onto his lap and dug the folded bit of note paper out of the front pocket. There it was again, the spidery handwriting. He could hardly make it out. He squinted, turning it sideways, then upside down, then right side up again. _F... Fa... _Oh, that was it - _Family _

_Family._

A tsunami of uncomfortable emotions spread out from the epicenter of that loaded word, beaming along the resonance link between Soul and his Meister like electric shocks. Soul tried to clamp down the iron curtain of his mind before it was too late, but... it was too late. The harmonic waltz had turned into a dissonant cacophony. Soul clamped his hands over his ears in a futile attempt to block it out. Faintly, in the background of the awful din, he thought he caught the laughter of the Little Demon...

_Stein, you bastard. You and your God-awful experiments...Why couldn't it have been "tree", or "dog", or ..._

Maka gasped. Emotion flooded her, and her soul vibrated painfully. Potent feelings, joy and pain, hybrid memories - people she'd never seen before, and people she knew intimately flashed through her. It made a terrible sound - pressing against the corners of her mind so forcefully she thought her head might explode. Suddenly, her resonance with Soul was cut off, snapping back like a broken piano wire.

The force rocked her backward in the chair. She kept her eyes shut, regaining composure. After a few minutes, she opened her eyes.

"Well?" asked Stein.

"Family." said Maka.

"Very good." Said Stein.

The class erupted in applause.

On cue, the bell rang, and students shuffled to gather their belongings and hurry to the cafeteria for lunch period.

Maka stood and made a quick bow to Professor Stein. She felt like a leaking balloon, minutes away from complete diffusion.

"Thank you for allowing Soul and I to help today." She managed.

"Don't mention it." Said Stein. "How are you feeling, by the way?" He asked, scanning her face as he pulled a drafting pen out of his lab coat pocket. Maka looked away.

"Fine. I'm just... It's a lot of pressure, you know."

"Oh, I know." Said Stein. "Maka, are you sure you won't come by my office so I can check your vitals? You look a little bit flushed."

The overhead lights glared off of his glasses as Stein towered over her.

"Oh no, thank you, but I'm fine." Maka said, hurrying toward the door. She ducked her head one more time before leaving the classroom.

Stein nodded, producing a cigarette from an internal coat pocket. He lit it, took a drag, and plopped down in his chair, folding his arms behind his head.

"Interesting..." He drawled, blowing smoke rings toward the ceiling.


	2. Chapter 2

_Come on..._ Soul grumbled, drumming his fingers on the wooden library carrel. He looked at the clock - it was ten minutes until the end of lunch period. He was slouched in the chair accompanying desk number forty two. Unbeknownst to him, his right foot was bouncing his leg up and down rapidly, sending small seismic waves through the second floor of the library. Books populated the space stretching away from him in every dimension - up, down, side to side - an unfamiliar forest of pages, bindings, and covers. After a few circuits of the library perimeter, he'd decided to stay in one place and wait. Better odds than venturing into the maze...

"WhoEVER is VIBRATING the ENTIRE LIBRARY could you _KNOCK IT OFF_, for Shinigami's sake!" A harsh whisper pierced the silence a few rows in front of him.

Soul blinked, brought his renegade limb under control and stood up slowly. He'd been sure this was the right one...the one right next to the section on the History of Shibusen. He squinted at the label on the side of the stacks again - it read _"_History of Shi_suben."_ Seriously? What the hell was _Shisuben_? Who was in charge naming crap around here...

He moved toward the carrel 3 rows up. The desk's built-in cubical wall screened its occupant from view, except for a pair of rugged, black boots and skinny white legs partially visible beneath.

As he drew up to the desk, he stood quietly for a moment, staring down.

Maka sat in the chair, hands folded in her lap, head bowed over a big, thick book. A big, thick, closed book. The book had nothing to recommend itself - no external writing, no pictures - just a small embossed leaf in the center. It looked like the kind that would probably smell extremely musty, and the burnt umber of its cover material screamed torturous boringness. As weird as she was about her books, Soul had never known Maka to attempt to interact with one in a closed state - unless it was embedding itself in his skull... this was unusual...

"Maka-" Soul said slowly, somewhat surprised that she hadn't noticed his presence as he loomed beside her.

"Go away, Soul, I'm studying." She said flatly, without looking up.

"Looks like it." Soul said, crossing his arms over the top of the cubicle and resting his chin on top.

Maka sighed, pushing her chair out from the desk. She picked up her bag and leaned the big book up on the carrel's shelf with a number of others. She let her mind focus on the way the books looked - spines of various colors paralleling each other with their special green carrel cards poking out from between the pages. Those cards meant she could check out as many books as she wanted, as long as she wanted, and leave them at her assigned carrel throughout the entire semester. She loved being a Senior. This place had become a haven of sorts for her...

"Don't bug me, Soul." She said. "We need to get to class."

She put the strap of her bag over her head, picked up her jacket from the back of the chair and started walking.

Soul growled, threw up his hands, and fell into step behind her. But not before taking a quick look at the book she'd been focused on. He flipped open the front cover. It was an old dictionary.

_Come on, Maka...this is why people have smartphones..._

As they passed through the library door and out into the hall, Soul reached out and hooked the strap of Maka's bag, interrupting her focused march toward the next class.

Maka spun around to tackle the problem. She had to readjust her eyes as a power bar was dangled in front of her face.

"Eat something, will ya?" Soul said.

"Ugh, where did you get that?" She asked.

"Blackstar. He keeps at least five on him at all times. "Tsubaki said you didn't come to lunch."

"Well, yeah, I had work to do." She said, smacking his hand away and continuing down the hall.

Soul followed, sneaking the admittedly unsavory snack into an outer pocket of her bag. Maybe she'd be hungry enough later to eat it out of desperation...

They'd reached the place where they needed to part ways - they had different classes this period.

"Hey Maka-" Soul started

"Don't wanna talk about it." She cut him off, turning to go.

Soul sighed. She had her own way of dealing with certain things. Or not dealing with them. There was definitely something unsettling about what had occurred that morning, but maybe taking a page out of her book made sense this time. He'd forget about it too.

* * *

Stein stared at the computer screen - an ancient green monochrome CRT, attached to a customized CPU with six state-of-the-art cores. He cranked the screw in his head a few rotations forward, a few more back, entered several keystrokes worth of data, and pushed away from the desk, rolling to the center of the room. He could feel the madness pounding in his ears - it had been close to the surface the last few months.

He folded his arms behind his head and began to spin the chair slowly. His eyes landed on the corner, where the last ceiling light in the row was sputtering above Marie's desk.

Marie had set up her own space in a corner of the office - her desk and the walls it stood in front of were covered with a shrine-like collection of items she referred to as "sentimental". Photographs and postcards and clippings from magazines. Taped to the wall were a few dozen magazine pages with tall skinny women in wedding dresses - styles she said she liked, a calendar with an image of two kittens in a pair of old boots open to March - the month she'd left on assignment, a photo with Marie, Spirit, Stein and Azusa as teenagers, and some other shots with people he didn't recognize.

On the desk sat a vase with eleven dried roses and a decorative picture frame with several different windows for photographs. The largest window held a photo with Marie and two women who looked very similar to her - one older, the other about the same age as Marie. The smaller windows held a black-and-white of a couple in 50's attire, and a recent photo of the same young-woman-who-was-not-Marie from the large photo together with a man - a baby in her arms. Along the bottom of the frame, in flowing, cursive script, the word "Family" was printed. Smaller words - "love", "warmth", "cherish", "forever" were scattered around the frame, some printed vertically.

Stein turned his head-screw as he pondered his Weapon's workspace. He was thinking about the feasibility of dissecting his own brain. It had been focusing on unusual things recently.

* * *

Maka was silent on the way home to the apartment.

Not that Soul could have heard anything - the bike was loud. She just...kind of _felt _silent. It seemed awkward...or something.

When they arrived, she hopped off and climbed the steps to the door. Soul caught up to her as she was digging for her keys in her bag.

He jingled his set in front of her, raising an eyebrow.

"Thanks, Soul." she said, giving a slight smile.

As they walked in, Maka threw her bag onto a chair and stretched. After a moment she headed to the kitchen and pulled some meat out of the fridge. She frowned and poked it with a knife.

"...still frozen..." she growled

"Let's order take-out." Soul said. "Mission tomorrow, remember?

She brightened.

"That sounds perfect."

She was mostly excited about the mission, Soul knew. It would be their first in nearly two months.

Later, as they downed chicken Lo Mein and egg rolls in front of the TV, the lingering strangeness of the morning seemed to dissipate - almost.

Soul looked at Maka out of the corner of his eye, sitting on the other end of the couch. She was zoned into the TV show, legs drawn up to her chest, munching on an egg roll she was holding with the fingertips of both hands like a koala with a handful of eucalyptus.

It was kind of adorable. But spacing out at a TV show wasn't usually her style-specially one about people driving large semi-trucks over the frozen tundra. Soul still felt a little unbalanced himself - images and feelings played lightly beneath his normal senses - like a waking dream. He had to concentrate a little to push them back. It almost had a tinge of madness to it...

He shook his head to clear it.

No big deal. He just needed to get this out of his system.

It _would_ be good to fight tomorrow.

* * *

_Thank you reviewers for your kind comments! -CF_


	3. Chapter 3

_...Of course, one can imagine what sort of father and mentor such a man would be. As a father, he did precisely what was expected of him; that is, he totally and utterly abandoned his child by Adelaida Ivanonva, not out of malice towards him, and not from any wounded matrimonial feelings, but simply because he totally forgot about him. While he was pestering everyone with his tears and complaints, and turning his house into an iniquitous den, a faithful family servant, Grigory, took the three-year-old Mitya into his care, and if Grigory had not looked after him then, there would perhaps have been no one to change the child's shirt..._

Maka took a deep breath, placed a bookmark between the pages, and closed the book. As she stared out the plane window she felt the heavy tome slipped from beneath her hands.

"The Brothers Karamazov? What's this about, Maka?"

Maka turned toward Tsubaki, who had taken the seat next to her.

"It's about a father who's a drunken man-whore bastard and his sons..."

Tsubaki looked concerned.

"I mean, a lot of other stuff too..." Maka added

"Oh. Sounds interesting..." Tsubaki smiled, opening the front cover to read the dust jacket.

"It's set in Russia?"

"The first time we were in Moscow, before Feodor and Tsar...well... you know... anyway, when I first met him, Feodor gave me this. He knew my father from way back when, and kind of took an interest in me. We talked a lot about Russian literature...He said I should read this if I wanted to know Russia. And basically everything about life...and human nature."

"Looks like you're just starting it now..." Tsubaki said

"Yeah...well...I didn't feel like picking it up for a while after what happened, but since we're going back..."

"I can understand that." Tsubaki said.

"What have you heard about the mission?" Maka asked.

"Not too much. We're meeting up with the Russian Branch in Moscow and I think heading out to the countryside from there. Something about a disturbance happening out there."

"I wonder why they called us over. They're usually fine at handling things themselves."

"I don't know. Things have been pretty quiet since we defeated the kishin."

"I guess Shinigami said it was only matter of time before corrupt individuals began to accumulate power again. What was it he said...something like what we did will go down in the history books, but in the big scheme of things, it was just a temporary redistribution of power.

"Job security!" Blackstar crowed from the row in front of the girls, cracking his knuckles, folding his arms behind his head, and reclining his seat so far he was practically laying in Tsubaki's lap.

"Mind your own business, ninja turd!" Maka growled, recovering her book, and wielding it dangerously.

"Baahh - you're no fun" Blackstar grumbled, returning the seatback to a reasonable position, and slipping into the aisle to stalk someone else.

"This flight is soooo freaking loooongggg..." he wailed

"_I remember everything, Alyosha, I remember you till you were eleven, I was nearly fifteen then. Fifteen and eleven, it's such a difference that brothers of those ages are never friends. I don't even know if I loved you. When I left for Moscow, in the first years I didn't even think of you at all. Later, when you got to Moscow yourself, it seems to be that we met only once somewhere. And now it's already the fourth month that I've been living here, and so far you and I have not exchanged a single word. I'm leaving tomorrow, and I was sitting here now, wondering how I could see you to say good-bye, and you came walking along."_

"_So you wished very much to see me?"_

"_Very much. I want to get acquainted with you once and for all, and I want you to get acquainted with me. And with that, to say good-bye. I think it's best to get acquainted before parting."_

"SOOuuuuullll! What are you listening to?"

Blackstar yanked one of Soul's earbuds out and rammed it in his own ear. Soul tried to grab it, but was outmatched by the ninja's quick reflexes.

"What the hell?" Blackstar quickly pulled out the earbud and tossed it back at Soul's head in disgust.

Soul punched him in the shoulder. "You dick! You think I want whatever lives in your nasty ears on my stuff?" He pulled out the other earbud, turned off his mp3 player, and shoved the whole thing back in his jacket pocket.

"Were you listening to a _book_?" Blackstar asked. His expression hovered between horror and glee.

"So what." Soul said, shrugging.

"Did _She_ put you up to this?"

He put his excessively muscled arm around Soul's shoulders. "Come on man, you should spend more time around me - _I'll help you get your cohones back_."

"It's doesn't have anything to do with Maka." Soul grumbled

"Sure, man. Whatever you say..."

"Blackstar, what do you want?"

"I'm BORED! This is the MOST BORING FLIGHT EVER!"

"We've only been in the air for two hours. We have like seven to go." Soul said, yawning. "You should just sleep or something."

"The great BlackStar does not require sleep!"

Soul sighed. He pulled his backpack from underneath the seat and retrieved a pack of playing cards from the front pocket. BlackStar's eyes brightened.

"Okay, you eighteen-year-old toddler, wanna play a game?"

"You know it!"

"Loser buys the winner a meal. Once a day. For a month."

"I'll never lose." BlackStar cracked his knuckles.

Soul pulled the tray table down and started dealing.

"What are we playing?" BlackStar asked.

"Shithead." Soul grinned.

* * *

_Note - Quotes from The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky_


	4. Chapter 4

The sun was just breaking over the horizon as they arrived at Domodedovo airport. Maka could feel her internal clock struggling to reset. She'd slept random hours on the plane, but nowhere near a normal amount. She felt like morning had just happened, and now it was dawn again.

This was the first time she'd been to Eastern Europe in the summer. As they rode their private bus through the streets of Moscow, she enjoyed the scenes of the city waking up. Kid, Liz and Patty dozed, BlackStar was doing push-ups in the aisle, Tsubaki watched out the window, and Soul listened to something through his headphones. Sid and Nygus were near the front of the bus, Sid speaking to the driver, Nygus looking through some papers. Everyone was dressed in plainclothes - Sid didn't want to attract any unwanted attention until they got to where they needed to be.

Their destination was Red Square. But not to tour. They'd been told they would be greeted and briefed, then sent out to deal with whatever the threat was.

As they waited under the rusty red wall of the Kremlin, a tall man approached Sid. Sid nodded and gestured to the rest of the group to follow. The man led them down several alleyways and into a nondescript doorway.

They passed down a hallway, through several more doors, and emerged in what must have been a grand ballroom at one time - high ceilings, parquet floors, dark wood, heavy velvet curtains thinning in patches. The sickle and hammer motif appeared everywhere in the bones of the room - carved in wooden details, embossed on bronze lamp sconces. The EE DWMA had evidently repurposed this space, though Maka had never seen it on any previous missions. The team was offered space at a large, modern meeting table set up in the center of the room, and tea from a samovar on an antique side table. Then the tall man began to talk.

"Good morning. I am Death Scythe Sergei Volkov. It is my first time to have the honor of meeting most of you. Thank you for your assistance. Let us begin the briefing."

"Kyrill - Pashli!" Sergei yelled to a little man Maka had just noticed, sitting in a corner near a number of computer monitors and servers. The inset monitors of the meeting table lit up, flashing a series of images - maps, photographs, graphs.

"We have trouble" Sergei said. "This town - Veredivo - he pointed to the map - a village on the bank of a tributary of the Volga, near Nizhiny Novgorod - there is something strange. But we could not pinpoint it. Power is being drawn there. Sometimes, a great amount of madness shows up on our tools, and those of us sensitive to it - we can feel it. But mostly it is silent. We sent out a team - these pictures are from them."

Maka squinted. It looked like a small country town. The pictures were very detailed. It looked like the investigators had met with quite a number of families from the town. There were homes, cottages, and people, a small church, a small school, some animals, farm fields, but - nothing looked particularly wrong.

She was confused.

"What's wrong with this? It looks normal to me."

Next to her, she heard Tsubaki take in a sharp breath.

"Where are the children? Do any children live here?" Tsubaki asked

Sergei let out a long breath.

"Yes. There should be children. We don't know where they have gone. Our team could find no one below the age of twenty-three in the town. And the strangest thing - the parents and grandparents don't miss them - They are without concern. Even though they have photographs, they have their children's belongings, their rooms - they are... how do you say... it's like they see these things, but they don't _see_. They... seem to have forgotten their own children ever existed... We would not have discovered the situation if not for the rogue madness emanation."

"What!?" Maka stood up so quickly her chair tumbled over

"Maka..." Soul righted the chair and put a hand on her shoulder.

She slowly sat again, eyes focused intently on Sergei.

"Do you know who or what is behind this?" Kid asked, from the other side of the table.

The newly-minted head of the EE DWMA shook his head. "I have never experienced a situation like this in all my years as a Death Scythe. I assure you, we have had our finest weapon-meister investigation teams working on this, and they have turned up absolutely nothing. We can't wait any longer."

All eyes in the room were riveted on Sergei.

"I know. It is highly disturbing. Where children are concerned, and with the strength of the madness we have detected emanating from the location, we knew we needed help. With the rare genetic gifts present in your team, we hoped you could succeed where we have failed."

He looked pointedly at Maka.

Suddenly, a DWMA EE meister entered through a side-door of the ballroom. He spoke in Russian to Sergei, who nodded. The meister stood aside, and into the room stepped Professor Stein and Spirit Death Scythe.

Maka's eyebrows rose. Her father's eyes found her, and he smiled goofily.

_Shinigami, She hated doing missions with Spirit. This was quickly becoming something completely different than the simple, refreshing battle she'd envisioned._

"The DWMA received new information from Sergei just after you left Nevada." Said Stein. "Shinigami felt it was best we accompany you. We caught the next flight out."

"We can't waste any more time." Said Sid, standing.

"To the bus, everyone." Sergei ordered. "We'll go over more details on the way."


	5. Chapter 5

Stein flipped through the stack of large photographs, pausing from time to time to grip the edge of his seat as the bus hit a bump or rounded a corner. He was crammed into the seat behind the driver, long legs bent awkwardly. The driver was chain smoking. An overflowing ashtray full of spent butts was glued to the center of the dashboard along with a gilded icon of the Virgin Mary. Little wisps of smoke trailed out and over the edge of the tray, floating around the base of the golden frame. Whatever the guy was smoking smelled like burnt rubber. Stein lit a cigarette of his own to get the taste out of his mouth.

"This is not good... not good..." Spirit mumbled from the seat across the aisle. The Death Scythe was examining his own stack of photographs.

"Let me see." Said Stein. Spirit handed him the photo he'd just been looking at.

It showed a middle-aged woman holding a basket full of produce and standing in a small kitchen. She was smiling broadly at the camera.

"What's wrong with it?" Stein asked.

"She's HAPPY!" Spirit replied, gesturing with his arms.

"I thought happiness was generally accepted as a positive emotion?" Stein questioned.

"Not when your children have DISAPPEARED OVERNIGHT FOR NO APPARENT REASON!" Spirit said, poking his finger at what appeared to be a family portrait showing the woman with several children on the wall behind the her.

"Maybe she's happy about all of the cucumbers and squash in her basket." Stein said, matter-of-factly. Spirit sighed.

"I thought you were catching on to this kind of thing, old man." He said.

Stein reached up and turned his head-screw a few rotations.

"What's to catch on to? You people don't make sense most of the time. I just do what I'm told, and the rest is up for experimentation."

"You're really hopeless..." Spirit grumbled, snatching the photo back.

"And you're controlled by your emotions. I saw it in your soul when I dissected you." Stein stated.

"WAAaaah! You creepy bastard!" Spirit squealed, clamping his arms across his chest, and retreating into his seat.

* * *

As the bus rumbled to a stop, the passengers stretched and stood. The sun was just beginning to set.

Soul took in first impressions of Veridovo. It had similarities to other Eastern European villages they'd visited - a few structures - the school for one - were solid, stocky remnants of the Soviet era. An older Eastern Orthodox church with a few onion domes and a bell tower seemed to be the general center of town, and simple dwellings with ornately-carved details on windows and doors took up most of the real-estate. A few people were in sight - several older women with head scarves - stereotypical "babushka" style - a middle-aged man driving a tractor down the main street.

The town paralleled a small river, where a group of men were fishing from a rusty, barge-like boat. The houses all had small vegetable gardens associated with them - some with goats or chickens. Fields for agricultural production took up the bulk of the land that flowed away from the town - Soul couldn't identify what was being grown, but it seemed to be several different crops. Woodlands of birch and pine divided one field from another, and patches of forest dotted the landscape.

Maka exited the bus, stretching. It had been a long ride. She took in a deep breath. The air smelled fresh and clear. Sid, Nygus, Stein, Spirit, and Sergei had stepped off the bus as well, and were conversing with a woman Maka had never seen before. After a few minutes, the group of adults motioned the students to come closer.

"Welcome to Veridivo." The unfamiliar woman said, with a thick Russian accent. She looked to be perhaps in her mid-forties. She had long black hair, which fell over her shoulder in a thick braid. Her clothing was richly colored - teal green top, maroon skirt, and a mustard-yellow scarf pattered with red and black roses around her neck. She wore large, copper hoop earrings, reflected in the copper clasps on her black leather boots. She looked from person to person with a striking intensity behind her amber eyes. She continued in Russian, with Sergei translating.

"This is Nastya Ivanova" He said. "She is a witch."

A number of the DWMA students failed to hide their surprise. Kid turned his head to glare at his classmates.

"You will understand, that while my kind have not always been on the best of terms with the humans - particularly those of you in this line of work - I have decided to assist Sergei and your team in this instance. I have, truth be told, never lived a life consistent with most of my kind."

"I have existed among the humans for over five hundred and eighty three years in this vicinity. I live and walk this earth as if I am a human, and there are very few in this place who know of my true nature. Naturally, since I do not age, I must migrate from village to village as the years go on, to maintain this ruse."

"Sometimes, I become attached to a place. Or a person. As it happens, in this town, in this century, I am married to a man named Igor. We have two children."

Maka looked to her right and caught Tsubaki's eye. Tsubaki responded with an equally surprised expression.

"Like the rest of the children, my two darlings, Masha and Vera, have gone missing. I seem to be unaffected by the apathy that has overtaken the human adults, and so have used everything at my disposal to find them - with no success. The human adults here are useless - there is something suppressing their memory, their reality - I'm not sure. My fellow witches...they find it disturbing - the way I live - I cut ties with them long ago. And my children - because they are half human... they would not help me."

Without skipping a beat, Kim strode to Nastya's side, took both of her hands in her own, and said "We'll get them back. That's a DWMA promise."

Nastya blinked in surprise, looked Kim up and down, and spoke in Russian to Sergei.

"You're a witch?" Sergei asked. He looked surprised himself.

Kim looked Nastya in the eyes and nodded.

"And a meister. Pleasure to meet you."

Sergei shook his head as if it might help the new information settle. He spoke again to Nastya, and they conversed for a few moments.

"Nastya has secured a base for us. Quickly, let's unload and get going."

* * *

Maka scanned her new accommodations - an ascetic cot in a small chamber with a curtain for a doorway. The structure was wooden, with exposed timbers for walls. A well-worn rug was hung on the wall beside the cot - probably for keeping cold drafts out during the long Russian winters. The defunct monastery would provide adequate shelter, and a place to sleep for as long as it took them to tackle this problem. Maka was thankful that their host was a witch - though she said the structure had been unoccupied for seven years, she'd used her magic to tidy it up.

Maka looked for a place to sit. She needed to focus. Finding no good sitting options, she laid down on the cot. The leaders had given them two hours to settle in and rest. They couldn't afford to burn out the team, but they couldn't afford to wait much longer either. Maka was angry they'd given them that long.

"_There are children missing, for Shinigami's sake!" _She'd barked at Sergei- probably way out of line, but she didn't care.

"_Yeah, and you'll be no good to them if you run yourself ragged." _Soul had replied, in a slow, measured way that irritated the hell out of her.

"_What are you, my mommy?" _She'd whirled at him and growled under her breath _"You and I and everyone else here knows I don't need a mommy. I know what I'm capable of. I get to decide what's worth running myself ragged for!" _

"_Jeez - chill, will you..."_

"_No! I won't "chill"! This is serious! It's not just some everyday evil witch hunt or something - there are kids involved! It's ridiculous to be wasting time..."_

She'd grabbed her stuff then and stormed down to the end of the hall, picking the last chamber on the left. Bickering with Soul was nothing new, but she usually wasn't one to openly challenge authority like that. Her own actions had surprised her.

As she lay on the very worn cot and closed her eyes, her fingers went to the the thin red ribbon around her neck. She tugged it out from beneath her shirt. It held the ring Spirit had recently given her - her mother's wedding band. As she focused, she turned the thin silver between her fingers. She wasn't going to wait to send out her Soul Perception - those kids needed her now.

"Maka. Hey Maka, can I come in?"

She dropped the ring, and opened her eyes. Soul was standing at the edge of her curtain-door, eyeing her suspiciously.

"Hey! Even if it's just a curtain, you have to wait until I answer to come in!"

"I called your name like ten times. I figured you must be dead or something, so I had to check."

Maka felt a smile start faintly across her face. Even in the worst situations, her weapon could usually pry a smile out of her.

He took a step in, and stood awkwardly near the door, with his hands in his pockets.

"Nice place you got here." He drawled, looking around. "Mind if I sit down?"

"Make yourself at home." She grumbled. She grabbed the dark green wool blanket from the end of the cot and pulled it over herself, cocooning her face grumpily.

He sat down on the wooden floor across from the cot, leaning his back against the wall and drawing his knees up in front of him. His knees almost touched the edge of the cot.

The room seemed much smaller with another person in it.

Soul looked at Maka dubiously.

"You were going to do Soul Perception by yourself, weren't you?"

Maka shifted so her back was towards him.

"Stupid Maka."

"We can't wait." She said, face turned toward the wall. "If you don't want to help me, get out."

She waited a few minutes. When she didn't hear anything, she started to turn back toward Soul.

"I said, If-"

She felt something digging into her back. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Soul poking her with his foot.

"Fine. I don't see the point in waiting either." He said.

Maka propped herself up, and rose to take a seat next to Soul on the floor.

"Thanks." She said

He offered her his left hand, and she took it, locking their fingers together. With his right, he remembered a melody, playing a silent tune against the floorboards as his soul recalled the music. Maka closed her eyes and sent her Soul Perception out.

And it hit her like an avalanche.


End file.
